My girlfriend and I arrive at the Royal Albert hall at
a quarter-to-six.We
are here for the Last Night of the Proms, something I have only
read about, watched on TV, and haughtily disdained from afar.Now, in my capacity as critic, I get to disdain it in
person.It is terribly exciting, especially seeing as
we have standing tickets for the occasion.This will be the authentic experience.

I bump into some old Promming
buddies milling about in the courtyard.You should have arrived earlier, one says.“We’ve just polished off our twelfth bottle
of champagne.”I begin
wondering if the cider I had over lunch will sufficiently fortify
me against the evening’s celebration of all things English?As an Australian, England is about the last thing I want
to celebrate tonight.I make my way back to the queue, keeping my
eyes peeled for any Aussie flags to wave about during the national
anthem, but the man selling them is all out.What’s more, it turns out we’ve been in the wrong queue
for about half-an-hour.Ah well.The
new queue is only three times the length of the old one.It takes quite some time for the queue to move
in, but once inside, we settle into a spot in the centre of
the arena next to a TV camera.A balloon almost immediately hits me on the head.I pummel it back into the crowd like a
volleyball.A dozen other balloons and at least one beach
ball will come our way before the music starts, but, unlike
the gentleman to our left – who clearly feels such things are
inappropriate in a concert hall – we happily play along.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra finally
make their way onto stage at about the time they should have
been launching into the first brassy outburst of Walton’s Portsmouth
Point.Things are
running a little late due to an earlier security alert that
saw the whole hall cordoned off; by the time Paul Daniel, tonight’s
ringmaster, lifts his baton for the first time, it is already
a quarter of an hour behind schedule.

The crowd quietens down marginally
and listens to the evening’s first offering.Later, Daniel will wheel out an old Thomas Beecham quote
which goes: “The English may not like music, but they absolutely
love the noise it makes.”This essentially sums up Portsmouth Point,
which zips along enjoyably enough, if rather forgettably.Its rhythmic complexities make it one of the
hardest pieces in the repertory, apparently; the BBCSO players
scarcely glance once at Daniel’s busy baton.

Rather improbably, he is joined
by the countertenor Andreas Scholl.Dressed in an immaculately-tailored suit, Scholl cuts
a very dashing figure for a man who sings like a girl.He has brought along three Handel arias, including
a very famous one called Ombramai fu.It is better
known as the Largo from Xerse;
the lyrics, all four lines of them, are about an alluring vegetable.No wonder it is most commonly heard as an instrumental.Scholl, as it turns out, is a far better musician than
the evening really deserves or requires, and his efforts – which
include some impressive vocal aeronautics in the closing number
from Giustino – are rewarded
by an enthusiastic ovation.

Next in the pageantry is the Australian
guitarist John Williams.There
is pantomimic booing – perhaps, just perhaps, pertaining to
a certain contemporaneous cricket match – but he just smiles
and takes his place for Rodrigo’s Concierto
de Aranjuez.One doesn’t often hear this work complete, and thank
goodness for that; Williams himself can’t help raising a droll
eyebrow at the first movement’s dire banality.The finale is a little more interesting, but only a little.It is of course the famous central Adagio that contains
the only music worth listening to.Williams closes his eyes and goes for intense.It works.

What doesn’t work, and possibly
never did, is Constant Lambert’s ludicrous The Rio Grande.It is the sort of piece they stopped producing after
the 1930s, and for good reason.Its revival here is nothing more than a sideshow attraction,
a hideous chimera of bad taste held captive by a misguided sense
of nostalgia.The audience
loves it.They go oooh at the slushy, virtuoso pianism of Paul Lewis,
who really ought to know better; they go aaah
as mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill, together with the combined BBC
Singers and BBC Symphony Chorus, cheerfully sings SacheverellSitwell’s picture-postcard text.It begins “By the Rio Grande / they dance no
sarabande” and only gets worse.The performance, on the contrary, is actually
rather good.But,
honestly.

At interval, I bravely venture
forth to fetch supplies of ice-cream and water.It takes an age to reach the front of the ice-cream queue,
and an aeon to extract water from a crafty little vending machine
intent on taking my money and giving nothing in return.By the time I return to the arena, it has noticeably
filled out.Bottoms have
replaced feet on the ground, leaving very little room in which
to manoeuvre.I try anyway,
for which effort I receive some rather unflattering feedback
from my fellow Prommers.I suspect
they are merely jealous of my water and ice-cream.By now, the atmosphere is humid enough to be
visible, with a vaguely threatening cloud of semi-evaporated
sweat hanging just above the orchestra.

The second half begins with another
heroic Australian: this time it is the great Errol Flynn, in
the guise of The Sea Hawk.To be fair, Flynn does not actually make a personal
appearance, but excerpts from Erich Korngold’s
score more than suffice.The
orchestra and Daniel do some sterling swashbuckling, clearly
relishing the cheese factor.

With the audience warmed up – in
some cases sweltering – Daniel addresses his audience, the first
of several such occasions to come.He reminisces about the days when he was amongst the
thronged masses, enjoying the pandemonium from the other side
of the shirt-tails.He
proves an able and charismatic raconteur although he admits
later to being not without nerves.It is a big occasion for him, after all, and may go some
way towards making up for his rather ignominious exit from English
National Opera earlier this year.He takes the opportunity to introduce the evening’s
token ‘new’ piece, which in this case is
actually Simon Bainbridge’s five-year-old Scherzi.It was written as a birthday present for the
BBCSO when they turned 70.Now
they are 75 and it is infinitely more cost-conscious to wheel
it out again than it would be to commission something really
new.Composers do rather
price themselves out of the market these days, don’t they?

Scherzi is the musical equivalent of
the balloons certain Prommers have
begun deploying in the second half.These particular balloons make a pleasing noise, spiralling
up and around, climbing ever higher into the rafters, until
they run out of air and collapse.This is very much the scheme of Bainbridge’s
piece, whose many interweaving lines eventually become a single
upward spurt of energy, before vanishing altogether.It requires some virtuoso playing, which the BBCSO manage
once again without a single glance towards their conductor.Afterwards, the evening’s two superstars, Messrs Scholl
and Williams, return to the stage to go Down By the Salley
Gardens.The combination
of guitar and countertenor does not seem likely to fill the
Royal Albert Hall, but Williams and Scholl manage to do just
that.It is rather lovely,
in fact, as is their subsequent trip to Purcell’s Fairest Isle.This latter sees them backed by orchestra and choir,
which is very nice indeed.

But now it is time for the real
festivities to begin.Prommers
begin bobbing up and down in time with Elgar’s
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1.Dignity and a sense of perspective prevent me from joining
in, but I cannot help singing “Land of Hope and Glory” at the
top of my lungs when the allocated time comes.I know that, as an Australian, I am essentially committing
treason against the motherland, especially in this time of greatest
need; but it’s all jolly good fun anyway.Besides, I have learned that it it’s only jingoistic
if you attempt to sing in key.

Daniel has more to say.This year, Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British
Sea-Songs has a few politically-correct additions, he explains.It also features some whiz-bang multimedia hoo-ha
involving the various Proms in the Parks scattered around the
country.So the brass and percussion issue a bugle call,
which is relayed by video screen to one of five orchestras entertaining
the masses in Belfast, Manchester, Glasgow, Swansea and London’s
Hyde Park.The phrase
is then repeated by that orchestra and everyone cheers.The effect is pleasing, but it all goes on a bit long
and distracts from the main event.During the Sea Songs proper, there is whistling, stamping,
more bobbing, and some very noisy Klaxon horns.There is also some rather slushy orchestration from a
man named Bob Chilcott, who has thrown
in some famous regional songs (All Through the Night, Skye Boat
Song and Londonderry Air) to make things a little more inclusive
for those Britons not represented by Jack’s the Lad.Nothing for us Australians, though.Next year, I expect an arrangement for each of Britain’s
former colonies.

Finally, it is the coup de grâce,
the crowning trio of Rule Britannia, Jerusalem and the National
Anthem.I put my hand on my heart and sing as loudly
and as tunelessly as I know how.It is a minor betrayal, I know, and it will probably
contribute to Australia losing the Ashes series for the first
time since I was a little boy.But like Paul Daniel, this is my first ever
Last Night, and it is hard not to be carried away by the pomp
of it all.By the second verse of Jerusalem, I’ve almost
found the tune.I hum
it all the way home.